The invention relates to a cooling apparatus for rubber covered wheels, the hard rubber covering of which is to be removed by means of cold embrittlement.
Rubber covered wheels consist of a metal hub of steel or aluminum with a hard rubber covering is removed. This means that the damaged or used hard rubber is completely separated from the metallic hub. Several methods are known for this purpose. There are purely mechanical processes according to which the hard rubber is turned down or milled off. The entire rubber covering is pressed off according to another method by means of a press after which the remaining rubber is turned down. The metallic hub is heated according to another process principle by induction after which the rubber covering can easily be removed. This method can only be applied with steel hubs, to be sure, since temperatures of 350.degree. C. are used in this process whereby unacceptable structure changes already take place in aluminum.
It is further known to cool the entire wheel to low temperatures, for example, by means of a low boiling liquid gas. The different shrinkage behavior of the individual materials combined with the cold embrittlement of the rubber effects and facilitates here the separation. The disadvantage of this method is the high consumption of cooling agent, for example, of liquid nitrogen, since the specific heat of rubber is about three times as high as that of aluminum or steel.